Poisonous
by Lacrymosa
Summary: Snape gets an unexpected visitor at Spinner's End, and struggles to keep his cool as she tells him what she's there for. Slight SSBL. Set during HBP, after Spinner's End chapter.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything. If I did, I'd be rich, and I'm not, so there you go.**

_**Poisonous**_

At ten o'clock in the evening on a cold winter's night, Spinner's End was deserted, save for a stray dog scavenging in a dark alley. Most of the houses—shacks, comprising the labyrinth of worn brick were completely dark, except one. Severus Snape's home, or temporary place of residence, as he preferred to think of it, had one light on, and his visitor took this as a good sign. The hooded figure walked silently up the path leading to the door, which had once been painted a dark red. Long fingers peeled off a shard of paint, let it crumble into flakes before wrapping slender fingers around the heavy brass knocker. She rapped once, twice as an afterthought. Bellatrix Lestrange was not one to be kept waiting.

She heard footsteps approaching the door, and pulled the hood of her clock up high. Recognizing the Death Eater's mask as she knew he would, Severus Snape unlocked his door.

"_Crucio!_"

The curse hit him hard, and completely caught of guard, he fell to the ground, writing in agony. Bellatrix stepped over him and admired her handiwork. Smiling, she held her wand over his face, watching his eyes plead with hers. "_Finite Incantatum_."

Supporting himself on the arm of a threadbare sofa, Snape shakily got to his feet and looked at his assailant. With the hood removed, he realized who had cursed him, for no good reason, in the threshold of his own house: her black hair was parted in the middle and hung like curtains, lankly framing her pale face. Black eyes burned under darkly lined lids, but her lips were as full and red as the last time he'd seen her, thirteen years previously.

"Hello, Trixa. To what do I owe this…" he sneered, "pleasure?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Dislaimer: I don't own any of it. Still. I know, I wish I did, but I don't.**

_**Poisonous**_

"Do not. Call me that," said Bellatrix angrily. Her black eyes flashed and Snape got out his wand, preparing to defend himself again.

"You know, Trixa _dear_, I'd love to stand at the doorway and exchange pleasantries whilst freezing, but I'm afraid my…guest won't allow it." Snape gestured with his wand to the wall behind him while closing the door behind Bellatrix. The wall seemed to disappear, and revealed Wormtail, standing a rickety step, holding a broken phial. The fingers of his left hand were turning a curious shade of yellow. Bellatrix glared up at him, and gave Snape an exasperated look. She drew her wand, pointing it directly at Wormtail's face.

"You sniveling little clod! Get back to your cupboard and stay out of his," she gave Snape's chest a jab with her wand, "things!"

With a stifled squeak, Wormtail ran back upstairs. Bellatrix sauntered over to the threadbare sofa and sat down, removing her heavy black traveling cloak to reveal a simple black dress and black boots. Snape followed suite, still holding his wand out. His visitor was both beautiful and completely insane. He didn't put it past her to Crucio him again for the sheer sadistic fun of it. He sat opposite her, thoroughly confused as to the reason for her not-entire-unwelcome visit.

"So, Trixa," he sneered, keeping his tone light, "I'd imagine your visit has another purpose aside from inflicting pain on me? Or do you often walk around the slums of London, praying on unsuspecting potions masters and using Unforgivable curses at your leisure?"

Bellatrix could have sworn that if she closed her eyes, his voice sounded like velvet. "But orders are orders," she reminded herself and she put her thoughts aside. There would be plenty of time for that soon enough.

"Oh, _Sevvy_," she jeered. "Working at that place must be turning you soft, hmm?" She placed a cold, pale hand over his, enjoying the fact that his black eyes had widened slightly. "'Using Unforgivable curses at your leisure!'," she mocked. "I remember _teaching_ you those curses. I remember seeing your whole face light up when you first killed. And now? Evidently, Snivelus, working under that Mudblood-lover's wing has turned you into one of them.

Which incidentally, Snape," she said, spitting his name out as if it tasted bad, "is exactly the reason I'm here." Bellatrix removed her hand from his, annoyed that her threats were falling on seemingly deaf ears. Snape got up and went to a cabinet on the wall behind the sofa. Bellatrix's gleaming eyes followed him. Pulling out a dusty bottle of wine and two goblets, he began to speak, his back to her.

"You're here because you doubt my loyalties. Again, I might add. Isn't it evident that I only have Draco's best interests and the Dark Lord's bidding in mind? I know you don't trust me, Bella, even though both the Dark Lord and I have given you ample reason to."

He turned around, watching for a reaction. He could see the question formulate in her mind, knew it was coming before the words left her lips. "And _obviously_", he said, handing her a goblet and sitting down, "the only reason I have stayed at Hogwarts for so long is because the Dark Lord instructed me to do so. We've had this conversation before, Trixa darling. Now, if there's nothing else", he said softly, "perhaps you'd be willing to take your wand out of my face and have a drink? I didn't poison it, I promise," he said with what, on anyone else, would have been a smile.

Bellatrix put the goblet down on a dusty end table. She put her wand down haltingly, looking at him. "I will if you will," she teased. Snape reached into the pocket of his black robe and laid his wand on the table.

"Very good, _Sevvy_," she said, a slow smile spreading across her sallow features. Snape watched something snap in her black eyes. She leaned across, almost savagely, ravaging his lips with hers, feeling warm blood trickle slowly down his lips. Still holding onto his lip, she looked into his eyes, two dark tunnels. It was more that he could bear, and she knew it. He grabbed her, pulling her to her feet, and pushed her against the nearest wall. "If Bella wants rough, she'll get rough," he whispered, his eyes glinting dangerously. He reciprocated the kiss. Bella realized that her mission could wait, at least temporarily.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything, so you'll need to find other fodder if you wish to sue. Oh, and flames are accepted/welcomed. They'll be used to roast marshmallows later on. **

_**Poisonous**_

Snape pulled away from the kiss and sat back down on the sofa, picking up his glass of wine. He crossed one black-robed leg over the other and sneered disgustedly at his visitor.

"Now surely, you didn't come all the way here just to do that, did you? All the way to my _disgusting muggle dung-hill_, as you so eloquently like to call it? As much as I don't doubt that my good looks," he said, bemused, "can be spotted from miles away, something is telling me you have an ulterior motive. Am I right, Trixa darling? Or have you regressed back to our Hogwarts days, playing the part of the common whore for your own," he took a sip of wine, black eyes boring into hers from above the rim of his goblet, "sick pleasure?"

"Funny you should mention Hogwarts, _Snivelus_. Considering your reputation, I'm surprised that that muggle-loving idiot ever took you back, considering what you've done!" She smiled at him, as if admonishing a young boy. "Not to say, of course, that your actions weren't admirable or useful, of course. But you've hardly" her eyes gleamed red in the light coming from a dusty fireplace, "suffered for the Dark Lord, have you? Whereas I, Rodolphus, Rabastan…" She paused, thinking. "Even that idiot MacNair, have all spent time in Azkaban, braving the Dementors, staving off death because we knew He'd be back someday!"

Bellatrix's eyes were manic, dancing about the dingy room, catching Snape's. She realized with mounting excitement that, for the first time that evening, or ever to her knowledge, Snape's eyes held something more than cynicism and disgust: fear.

Suddenly, Bellatrix felt a white hot pain jolt through her left forearm. Snape noticed: he reached for his wand on the table and pocketed it, realizing that Bellatrix had grown distracted, looking around as if she expected someone to Apparate at any moment. The gleam in Bellatrix's eyes suddenly disappeared and Snape realized that her wand was gone from the tabletop as well…

"_Ms Black, please pay attention! Ten points from Slytherin!"_

_The voice snaps seventeen year old Bellatrix Black out of her reverie, as she hears several of her fellow Slytherins groan. They're dangerously close to losing the House Cup at this rate, but Bellatrix Black has other things on her mind: the newly acquired brand on her left forearm, for one. She keeps reliving the night before in her mind, over and over. The glorious, sensual pain of being branded one of the Dark Lord's servants and the exhilaration of knowing that she would kill, and soon, were enough to make her forget about such trivial things as the House Cup and History of Magic lectures. As the rest of her class files out of the room, Severus Snape, a friend of her boyfriend Rodolphus approaches her and touches her left fore-arm lightly. _

"_You too, huh?" he murmurs, looking almost ashamed._

_She raises her nose disdainfully, and whispers, her voice poisonous: "I am proud to be a servant of the Dark Lord. And you should be too." _

_Without another word she walks off, knowing that the time would come where she herself would kill Severus Snape on the Dark Lord's orders. She only hoped that before that time, she'd get to have a little fun with him first._

Before Snape could do anything, Bellatrix had his hands bound between coils of razor-wire with a flick of her wand. Her voice was poisonous, the same way it had been on that afternoon, years before:

"He _knows_, Snape. And he's sent me," she smiled, and paused, enjoying the patterns that Snape's blood had started to make on the creaking wood floor, "to finish you."

He opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off before he could say a word.

"I don't know what you were thinking, Severus. To be honest, I thought you had it in you. You were willing enough, certainly clever enough and yet, true to your nature, you decided to make life harder for yourself. You became a spy for that…that…" She trailed off, realizing that she couldn't even begin to describe the hate she harbored for the muggle-loving Mudblood sympathizer.

"Dumbledore," Snape whispered, each syllable venomous.

Bellatrix smiled.

"Yes, _that_. But I'm not going to kill you, Severus," she said sweetly. "I'm going to watch you crash and burn."

She took a sweeping look at the room around her, and then waved her wand.

"_Incendio!_"

The furniture and flooring around Snape caught fire, the flames licking at the wall, dangerously close to him. Bellatrix made her way to the door, smiling wickedly. Standing in the threshold, she grinned at Snape, whose face remained passive, watching the flames quickly surround him.

"You make me _sick_, Severus."

She put her hood back on, looking almost longingly at the pale face half-shrouded by black hair. Her eyes glowed red in the firelight.

"_Crucio_."


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue. Flames would actually be kinda entertaining, and fitting with the story.**

_**Poisonous**_

Bellatrix Black stood before the smoldering remains of Severus Snape's house, amazed. She had killed before, countless times, but this felt so different. His muffled screams echoed in her mind, she could see his darting black eyes so very clearly, the look of abject terror when he'd finally realized why she was there. She'd had her fun, of course, watching him squirm under her gaze. He was right, she _was_ a common whore. Then again, she had finished him off, killed him on the Dark Lord's bidding. A little voice echoed through her head.

_You killed Snivellus. You killed Severus Snape! And not mercifully either. Oh, no. No simple Avada Kedavras for you, you had to go ahead and burn the greasy git alive, didn't you. So why on earth so glum, hmm? Not so heartless after all?_

"Shut up!"

Bellatrix's voice echoed through the cold night, reverberating off the shacks that lined Spinner's End. She realized she'd spoken aloud and clapped a hand over her mouth, securing her hood over her head with the other. He had been suspiciously quiet, not screaming in terror or cursing her with every ounce of strength he had left. Was it possible that he knew what was coming? That he knew he'd been found out, that it was only a matter of time before the Dark Lord got wind his change to the Light side?

Bellatrix's left arm throbbed dully, and she realized that she had been standing over the wreckage for at least half an hour, lost in thought. She had, of course, bewitched the house so that a sort of effigy remained whenever Muggle eyes fell upon it, not that they would. Bellatrix imagined that the residents of Spinner's End didn't much care for neighborhood gossip, especially if they could see nothing wrong. She looked around, gave the pile of rubble that housed Snape's remains a last look and Disapparated with a loud cracking noise.

Bellatrix smiled in spite of herself. She had just Apparated into Riddle mansion, and was facing her master once more. She knelt before him, kissing the hem of the heavy black robes. Her voice was muffled against them, and she was thankful that he couldn't see the tears that had crept up into her black eyes.

"It is done, my Lord."

She saw a pale hand coming toward her, heard the familiar high, cold voice.

"Very good Bella. You may rise."

He helped her to her feet. Her hand instinctively went to her left forearm as his serpentine red eyes made contact with hers. He began to speak again.

"You see, my Bella, how wonderful it is to kill those whom displease the Dark order? Of course, you know this pleasure already. You rid the world of those Longbottom…filth. But Severus was…a special case. Convincing both that Muggle-lover and I of his loyalty, going behind our backs, thinking he could get away with it. The filthy half-blood got what he deserved. This will serve as a reminder of how unwise it is to displease the Dark Lord, won't it, Bella? A very good reminder, wouldn't you say?"

His eyes taunted her.

"Yes, my Lord. Indeed. Those who displease you are lower than Muggle scum. Severus Snape especially."

She lowered her eyes, subservient. If she repeated it, she would believe it. Snape had to die, and she had enjoyed doing it, hadn't she? She smiled wickedly, remembering the pleasure of watching him writhe under her own, expertly thrown Cruciatus. Voldemort's voice jolted her out of her reverie:

"Come closer, Bella."

He grabbed her arm, his eyes boring into hers. A smile played across his thin lips and Bella could feel her mind going pleasantly numb. There was no point resisting it and she welcomed the sensation. The high cold voice spoke again, his bony fingers gently pushing a strand of black hair back into place. It was a statement, not a question:

"You loved him."

She nodded.

"And yet you enjoyed killing him in the most brutal way possible, inflicting pain not only physical but emotional. You smiled and cackled as you watched his flesh burn away. The acrid stench was perfume to you and you grinned, smiled sweetly as you killed him, didn't you?"

"Yes, my Lord."

Voldemort considered her for a moment, his eyes glowing from the inside, almost poisonously. He frowned a bit.

"Why would you even attempt to hide this from your master, Bellatrix? I am the best Leglimens the world has ever known! Why would I send _you_ to kill him, Bella, unless I knew that he had special…" he hesitated, then smiled evilly, "meaning to you? You still enjoyed killing him, mind you. I see all and know all. Stupidity is not becoming in one of my Death Eaters, Bellatrix, and if you ever let yourself hesitate because of stupid Muggle emotions, I'll have no choice but to…_deal_ with you, as I see fit. Do I make myself plain?"

Bellatrix bowed low to the ground.

"Yes, my Lord."

"Very well. Come closer, Bellatrix."

He took her arms in his, kissing her violently. His red eyes glowed menacingly, and Bellatrix had never seen a more beautifully gruesome sight.

"That was an insult to Severus's memory," Bellatrix thought to herself, smiling a little to herself. She sprawled across her pillows, pulling off her slightly singed traveling cloak. Snape's voice still echoed through her thoughts, which were intermittently punctuated by his intense dark eyes, the guarded politeness in his voice as he laid his wand on the worn end table.

Long thin fingers traced the Mark on her forearm, the nails blood red against cream-pale skin. Her loyalty to the Dark Lord was unwavering, indelible as the spidery black Mark. She sunk into a fitful sleep. Her thoughts bounced around her mind, floated lazily, refusing to disappear:

_Snape had to die! He deserved it, Bella. He really did, the filthy traitor. He was nothing but a lying scum, unfaithful to the Dark Order. You did the Dark Lord a valuable service, you alone are faithful._

Her fingers found her left forearm in her sleep, gripping it so that the nails drew blood…

_You never said forever would ever hurt like this._

**Author's Note: Woah. It's finally over. This story is like…my pride and joy. It was a lot of fun to write, and I had planned to end it after Chapter 3, with the "Crucio" kinda leaving the readers hanging. Obviously, the reviews told me differently, so I wrote this epilogue-ish thing. I hope you enjoyed reading this because I certainly enjoyed writing it. Ah, by the way, the last line is a Marilyn Manson song lyric. I figured it would fit in with the theme. Cheers.**


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